After precisely twenty-four hours, I woke up. It was noon, and the room was almost empty, only Claire and I were there. I checked my body, and most of my wounds have healed, even my burned hair was back to normal. That said, the scars wouldn’t disappear unless I used some medicine, but I wasn’t interested in that. The scars were proof that I fought with my life on the line, and I survived.

“Did you become a robot or something?” Claire asked. “You slept exactly for twenty-four hours…”

Claire – HP: 319 MP: 187 STA: 319

Physical Limit Lv 23, Mental Limit Lv 01, Sensorial Limit Lv 22.

Skills: Focus Lv 07, Link Lv 05, Impulse Lv 04, Meditation Lv 04, Night Vision Lv 03, Vitality Shield Lv 03.

Evolution Orbs: 2563/15000

Evolution Coins: 26984

Skill: Link

Info: The user can find the allies' position. Number of allies registered: 23

Cost: 06 MP per minute x distance (KM)

Price: 50000

Sandra didn’t lie, Claire really could track me, as long as she has MP and I’m not too far away, she would be able to pinpoint my position.

“You should spend your evolution coins while you can, I will complete the challenges of that tower today, and I don’t know what will happen.”

I got up and tried to leave the room, but Claire stopped me with her inhuman strength. She hugged me from behind, and although she wasn’t big like a bear, I felt like one was hugging me.

“I told you not to disappear,” Claire said.

“I didn’t disappear, I was stuck inside the tower, and I don’t remember promising anything. Now, let me go. Time is… evolution orbs and coins.”

“Promise that you won’t disappear again,” Claire said, pressing her face against my back.

“… Forget it, Claire, it won’t happen. No matter what.”

Claire let me go showing a surprised expression, but then she looked angry. I used that opportunity to teleport to the statue. And without ceremony, I learned the skill mana cost reduction. After that, I upgraded my backpack to level six, and now I could carry 1.6 tons inside of it. In an instant, I lost 110000 evolution coins, but that was just the beginning. I customized my backpack to be able to summon anything from inside of it using only my thought, to do it without using MP I had to spend fifty thousand evolution coins.

After that, I created the evolved mutant eagle; the statue emitted a light enough to illuminate the entire lobby, and then I heard a thud in front of the hotel. The survivors went to see what had happened, and then they made a lot of noise.

‘I suppose I don’t need conventional bolts anymore, I can create a magic arrow every two minutes and even the weakest arrows can destroy most small fries.’

That said, it would be a waste not to use my hands in a battle. I would keep one hand free to use the spiritual knife if the necessity arises, but I would need a crossbow in my other hand. It was already part of me. I decided to sell the metal crossbow because it had a limit of how much MP it could absorb, and improve even more the vampire hunter’s crossbow. But then I remembered about my hard times inside the tower; my recovery rate was slow, only MP recovered fast.

‘I need one skill to restore my HP and STA faster… Come to think of it, in the beginning, I thought about draining the monsters energy to myself. Is there a skill which can do such a thing?’

Skill: Universal Absorption.

Info: the user can absorb the energy of dead foes. Only one type of energy can be consumed from a single enemy, and only one percent of the remaining energy will be absorbed.

Cost: 10MP

Price: 100000 Evolution coins.

I couldn’t drain HP from dead enemies, but I could drain their MP and STA. While that skill would be useless if I use on small fries, I could keep myself at top condition by consuming their STA. Without hesitation, I learned the skill.

‘Now I just need something to restore my HP… but I can do this later, and I don’t have much more evolution coins.’

I left the statue, and I also left the building, I didn’t notice it, but they had expanded the perimeter of the walls. The whole block had been destroyed, and now only the hotel was inside the walls. The walls were a hundred meters long, thanks to it, outside the hotel I saw thousands of magic plants.

“Your plants are also being cultivated,” Sandra said, “It’s unbelievable, but the plants can even survive under this hot sun even without water. We just have to find them and put it in a vase; our guess is they can grow just by absorbing the environment energy. Anyway, your new pet is quite big.”

The walls were ten meters tall, but I still could see the evolved mutant eagle on the other side of the walls. The creature was making a lot of noise; it was probably fighting.

“Did you tried to finish the next challenge?”

“We tried to enter, but the door didn’t open,” Sandra answered. “However, we received a message: all the survivors need to enter for the final challenge begin.”

“How are the preparations?”

“We are trying to equip all the survivors,” Sandra explained. “In an hour or two, they will have their weapons; the problem is their resolve.”

“They don’t have a choice. Besides, it’s not like they will have to fight directly.”

“We also thought about that,” Sandra said. “The final challenge will probably be a massive fight against many monsters or against a single powerful one. The tower is wide, so they will have space to run from the battle. But even though it is simple to explain and understand. They can’t just accept the reality of the facts.”

I left Sandra behind, and then I headed toward the wall’s gate, and there I saw many survivors observing the evolved mutant eagle, stepping on skeletons like they were pieces of Lego. Once in a while, mutant lizards would attack, but soon other survivors would make rain magic and projectiles on them. Claire, Harry, and the others were among them, they look relieved, but Claire was still angry and avoiding eye contact.

“You look… less wild today,” Sarah smiled awkwardly.

“Well, it’s understandable,” Rose said after she crossed her arms. “He had a hard time inside the tower, anyway, you did well surviving for so long.

“I didn’t have a hard time; I never felt so great before. Fighting, getting stronger, and no one was there to bother me. I felt like I was in Hawaii.”

“Maybe you got stronger,” Claire retorted, “But you became more annoying than stronger, I’m sure.”

“… well, I’m feeling something good is about to happen after this challenge,” Harry said. “So, let’s work hard together, all right?”

Even though the eagle was mine, I didn’t obtain a single orb or coin just observing it. But when I sit on the creature’s back, the notifications started to appear.

Evolved Mutant Eagle (Thunder) – HP: 800 MP: 3200 STA 800

Physical limit Lv 20, Mental limit Lv 30, Sensorial limit Lv 05.

Skills: Thunder Storm Lv 07, Electric Prison Lv 03, Bite Lv 02.

Evolution Orbs: 542/45000

The creature was just a big eagle, so I didn’t have any ideas for a name. But it was an ally; it deserved a name. Besides, call it evolved mutant eagle every time was annoying.

“Your name will be Stella.”

I choose that because it would be easy to remember, it was similar to the name of another species of eagles, after all.

“Let’s fly a little.”

Even though Stella was big, in a few seconds, we reached one hundred meters of height, and I had a hard time keeping myself on her back. Just like I had expected, Stella could quickly fly at one hundred kilometers per hour. Her max speed in the skies were one hundred fifty kilometers per hour, but she had to use the double of her STA. Flying at her average speed, she only had to stop after one hour. Although in the ground, she looked like a clumsy penguin.

As if flying at that speed wasn’t enough, she could quickly destroy dozens of monsters using her thunderstorm. After just ten minutes, I returned to the hotel, flying on her back was great, but we would have to fight soon. So, I decided to conserve her energy.

“Show off,” Claire said when we landed.

I finally gave her the reason to hate me, but that didn’t bother me.

“Awesome!” Harry said,” But you are not the only one who grew stronger. Look at this: Shadow Clo-“

Harry made a weird sign with his hands, but before he could finish his sentence. Rose stepped on his foot.

“I already told to stop saying that stupid name!” Rose shouted angrily.

I thought he had failed in whatever he was trying to do, but to my surprise, three Harry copies appeared. They were wearing the same clothes, but they didn’t have any weapon or gear.

Harry A - HP: 408 MP: 13 STA: 408

Harry B - HP: 408 MP: 13 STA: 408

Harry C - HP: 408 MP: 13 STA: 408

His copies also didn’t have skills; his copies also made his original body weaker. Maybe it was suitable for multitasking, but it was terrible for battle.

“What is the point of creating three copies of you who can’t use skills and don’t have any equipment?”

“This is exactly what I told him…” Rose sighed.

“But I can equip them!” Harry protested. “Their equipment is in my room, and they can fight and obtain orbs and coins for me while I do something else. They can even hunt at night while I sleep.

“What will happen if they die?”

“I will obtain their memories, orbs, and coins…” Harry hesitated. “And I will also receive the damage they received.”

“So, every time they die in the middle of the night, you will wake up thanks to an excruciating pain. It’s a very interesting alarm. And you spent half of your MP just to show me this?"

Sandra probably hit her head somewhere when she concluded Harry would be a good leader, I looked at her, but she avoided my gaze. Although I wasn’t a fan of masochism, I probably could use that skill as well. I would meditate while my copies would kill monsters, but it would be hard since the monsters are getting stronger and my copies would only have a fraction of my HP, MP, and STA.

While Sandra and the others were finishing the preparations, I decided to collect my leaves from the magical herbs. Luckily, the non-fighters had enough time in their hands to replant my other leaves and even put the names of the owners in those vases. Thanks to it, I found my herbs rather quickly. I had one hundred sixty spiritual plants: eighty red, thirty-two blue, and forty-eight green leaves.

While I was collecting the new leaves, I saw some survivors putting some leaves inside small bottles with water, and that picked my interest.

“You can create potions by mixing water and those leaves in a small bottle,” Charles explained.” But you also have to wait for ten days for the potion to be completed. It’s worth though, put just two leaves in a bottle with water, wait for ten days, and then you will have a low-quality potion.”

“I see.”

It was more efficient, but it was also too time-consuming. But the survivors knew the drawbacks, and that was also why they were storing some leaves inside their bags.

“Anyway, it seems that you pissed off the kids’ teacher,” Charles said. “You should apologize, she looked very worried when you were inside that tower.”

“Mind your own business.”

“I’m just saying…” Charles said. “Wow… calm down, dude, no need to glare.”

“You shouldn’t involve yourself in other people’s lives or problems. Not unless you want to pick a fight with them.

“I totally agree,” Charles said. “But I will say what I want anyways since I owe you one. You already knew how she was after the second test; after the third, she looked even worse. But since she was worried about you, she overcame her sadness and depression, just because she was worried about you. That’s all I wanted to say.”

After saying that, Charles left. Luckily, my days alongside these people were ending. They were too meddlesome, why can’t they live their own lives? I don’t remember meeting people so many annoying before the monsters. Everyone was worried about their own problems, and so was I. In any case, I soon forget Charles’ words and resumed my job of collecting leaves. After that, I watched Stella stepping on skeletons until Sandra and all the other survivors left the hotel.